perfunctory fist to his brow.
“Never in life,” I said, and raised my voice again. “How many of you men want a drink?”
That stopped their grumbling in its tracks, and they raised a cheer instead.
“Then climb down and line up!” I shouted. “By twos, if you will!” I grinned at them. “And if you won’t, go to hell and go there thirsty!”
That made most of them laugh.
“Sai Deschain,” Wegg said, “puttin drink in these fellers ain’t a good idea.”
But I thought it was. I motioned Kellin Frye to me and dropped two gold knucks into his hand. His eyes widened.
“You’re the trail-boss of this herd,” I told him. “What you’ve got there should buy them two whiskeys apiece, if they’re short shots, and that’s all I want them to have. Take Canfield with you, and that one there.” I pointed to one of the pokies. “Is it Arn?”
“Snip,” the fellow said. “T’other one’s Arn.”
“Aye, good. Snip, you at one end of the bar, Canfield at the other. Frye, you stand behind them at the door and watch their backs.”
“I won’t be taking my son into the Busted Luck,” Kellin Frye said. “It’s a whore-hole, so it is.”
“You won’t need to. Soh Vikka goes around back with the other pokie.” I cocked my thumb at Arn. “All you two fellows need to do is watch for any saltie trying to sneak out the back door. If you do, let loose a yell and then scat, because he’ll probably be our man. Understand?”
“Yep,” Arn said. “Come on, kid, off we go. Maybe if I get out of this wind, I can get a smoke to stay lit.”
“Not just yet,” I said, and beckoned to the boy.
“Hey, gunbunny!” one of the miners yelled. “You gonna let us out of this wind before nightfall? I’m fuckin thirsty!”
The others agreed.
“Hold your gabber,” I said. “Do that, and you get to wet your throat. Run your gums at me while I’m doing my job and you’ll sit out here in the back of a wagon and lick salt.”
That quieted them, and I bent to Vikka Frye. “You were to tell someone something while you were up there at the Salt Rocks. Did you do it?”
“Yar, I-” His father elbowed him almost hard enough to knock him over. The boy remembered his manners and started again, this time with a fist to his brow. “Yes, sai, do it please you.”
“Who did you speak to?”
“Puck DeLong. He’s a boy I know from Reap Fairday. He’s just a miner’s kid, but we palled around some, and did the three-leg race together. His da’s foreman of the nightwork crew. That’s what Puck says, anyways.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“That it was Billy Streeter who seen the skin-man in his human shape. I said how Billy hid under a pile of old tack, and that was what saved him. Puck knew who I was talking about, because Billy was at Reap Fairday, too. It was Billy who won the Goose Dash. Do you know the Goose Dash, sai gunslinger?”
“Yes,” I said. I had run it myself on more than one Reap Fairday, and not that long ago, either.
Vikka Frye swallowed hard, and his eyes filled with tears. “Billy’s da’ cheered like to bust his throat when Billy come in first,” he whispered.
“I’m sure he did. Did this Puck DeLong put the story on its way, do you think?”
“Dunno, do I? But I would’ve, if it’d been me.”
I thought that was good enough, and clapped Vikka on the shoulder. “Go on, now. And if anyone tries to take it on the sneak, raise a shout. A good loud one, so to be heard over the wind.”
He and Arn struck off for the alley that would take them behind the Busted Luck. The salties paid them no mind; they only had eyes for the batwing doors and thoughts for the rotgut waiting behind them.
“Men!” I shouted. And when they turned to me: “Wet thy whistles!”
That brought another cheer, and they set off for the saloon. But walking, not running, and still two by two. They had been well trained. I guessed that their lives as miners were little more than slavery, and I was thankful ka had pointed me along a different path… although, when I look back on it, I wonder how much difference there might be between the slavery of the mine and the slavery of the gun. Perhaps one: I’ve always had the sky to look at, and for that I tell Gan, the Man Jesus, and all the other gods that may be, thankya.
I motioned Jamie, Sheriff Peavy, and the new one-Wegg-to the far side of the street. We stood beneath the overhang that shielded the sheriff’s office. Strother and Pickens, the not-so-good deputies, were crowded into the doorway, fair goggling.
“Go inside, you two,” I told them.
“We don’t take orders from you,” Pickens said, just as haughty as Mary Dame, now that the boss was back.
“Go inside and shut the door,” Peavy said. “Have you thudbrains not kenned even yet who’s in charge of this raree?”
They drew back, Pickens glaring at me and Strother glaring at Jamie. The door slammed hard enough to rattle the glass. For a moment the four of us stood there, watching the great clouds of alkali dust blow up the high street, some of them so thick they made the saltwagons disappear. But there was little time for contemplation; it would be night all too soon, and then one of the salties now drinking in the Busted Luck might be a man no longer.
“I think we have a problem,” I said. I was speaking to all of them, but it was Jamie I was looking at. “It seems to me that a skin-turner who knows what he is would hardly admit to being able to ride.”
“Thought of that,” Jamie said, and tilted his head to Constable Wegg.
“We’ve got all of em who can sit a horse,” Wegg said. “Depend on it, sai. Ain’t I seen em myself?”
“I doubt if you’ve seen all of them,” I said.
“I think he has,” Jamie said. “Listen, Roland.”
“There’s one rich fella up in Little Debaria, name of Sam Shunt,” Wegg said. “The miners call him Shunt the Cunt, which ain’t surprising, since he’s got most of em where the hair grows short. He don’t own the Combyne-it’s big bugs in Gilead who’ve got that-but he owns most of the rest: the bars, the whores, the skiddums-”
I looked at Sheriff Peavy.
“Shacks in Little Debaria where some of the miners sleep,” he said. “Skiddums ain’t much, but they ain’t underground.”
I looked back at Wegg, who had hold of his duster’s lapels and was looking pleased with himself.
“Sammy Shunt owns the company store. Which means he owns the miners.” He grinned. When I didn’t grin back, he took his hands from his lapels and flipped them skyward. “It’s the way of the world, young sai-I didn’t make it, and neither did you.
“Now Sammy’s a great one for fun n games… always assumin he can turn a few pennies on em, that is. Four times a year, he sets up races for the miners. Some are footraces, and some are obstacle-course races, where they have to jump over wooden barrycades, or leap gullies filled up with mud. It’s pretty comical when they fall in. The whores always come to watch, and that makes em laugh like loons.”
“Hurry it up,” Peavy growled. “Those fellas won’t take long to get through two drinks.”
“He has hoss-races, too,” said Wegg, “although he won’t provide nothing but old nags, in case one of them ponies breaks a leg and has to be shot.”
“If a miner breaks a leg, is he shot?” I asked.
Wegg laughed and slapped his thigh as if I’d gotten off a good one. Cuthbert could have told him I don’t joke, but of course Cuthbert wasn’t there. And Jamie rarely says anything, if he doesn’t have to.
“Trig, young gunslinger, very trig ye are! Nay, they’re mended right enough, if they can be mended; there’s a couple of whores that make a little extra coin working as ammies after Sammy Shunt’s little competitions. They don’t mind; it’s servicin em either way, ain’t it?
“There’s an entry fee, accourse, taken out of wages. That pays Sammy’s expenses. As for the miners, the winner of whatever the particular competition happens to be-dash, obstacle-course, hoss-race-gets a year’s worth of debt forgiven at the company store. Sammy keeps the in’drest s’high on the others that he never loses by it. You see how it works? Quite snick, wouldn’t you say?”
